Deep In
by Kenophobia
Summary: What if Wesley never found Angel under the ocean? AU


To his credit, Gunn spent months searching. For someone who hated vampires and had never completely trusted even this one, he put in a lot effort. He did it partly for Fred though, who while she cared about Angel, saw herself as doing it for Connor. In reality however Connor was the first one to give up, walking out one night, citing that he could take care of himself. Eventually with no new leads, even Fred was forced to concede that Angel had probably been dust for months.

Light. Bright light so blinding he thought he would turn to ash. That was what the brightness meant wasn't it? He couldn't remember how or why but he remembered that light was bad. Sound. It was the loudest he had ever heard. Where were these thoughts coming from? When had he ever seen light or heard sound before, when there wasn't a before. There was no time only a single endless moment during which he stared into the silent darkness. Then his body jerked in a reaction to the sensory overload and he found he was capable of movement. Had he ever moved before? His muscles certainly felt like he hadn't. Then he opened his eyes and the light got even brighter.

Dr. Balia stared down at the patient. Just another patient; that was how she was trying to think of him. He had been found six weeks ago by an ocean exploration team who had thought him to be merely a well preserved corpse. The forensic anthropologists had been delighted at the discovery of a body whose manner of dress pointed to early 21st century but whom had such an unusual means of burial, (a murder victim they hypothesized),but had grown dismayed when they failed to discover any signs of even the slightest decay or anything that could possibly have preserved the remains. Then some crackpot scientist had hypothesized that the subject was not in fact dead. This was ridiculous; he had no pulse and hadn't moved at all since being discovered. But somehow the guy had been allowed in to see the specimen, whom the squints had taken to calling Gryphon on account of his tattoo. There the man had pulled back Gryphon's eyelid, shone a light in his eyes and pointed out the contraction of the pupils. Scientists everywhere were shocked and the anthropologists had been replaced by real doctors who specialized in the living. Her team had tried various ways to revive him, such as stimulating his heart and nervous system, none had been successful. Currently she was there alone at night observing the effects of a blood transfusion; though most of her colleagues agreed there wouldn't be any. She looked at him and sighed, Gryphon was a strong and healthy looking young male. What had caused him to be in this state was a mystery. Just then he twitched and his eyes flew open.

As his mind began to clear, Angel took in his surroundings; there was a woman and lots of bright harsh light. They appeared to be in some kind of hospital, buildings that he had never known much about. Slowly things began to come back to him. It was not unlike when his soul had first been returned to him and it had taken a moment for everything to come back. Being under the ocean hadn't exactly been like some kind of stasis, he remembered being conscious for at least some of the time. It had been like being on the edge of sleeping and waking, he hadn't known what was real or who he was. He knew who he was now though, and unlike when he was cursed he had some good to remember along with the bad. People would be waiting for him, Fred, and Gunn, and Cordelia, and he would have to figure out what he was going to do about Connor. First though he needed to get out of here, a hospital was not a good place for him to be.

The moment she realized what was happening, Dr. Balia leapt up and ran across the room and slammed shut the heavy steel door which locked automatically. Gryphon was being kept in a secure facility not only because they didn't want anyone unauthorized to have access to him, but also because should he actually wake up they certainly didn't want him to just walk out the front door. It turned out her concern had been justified because the first thing Gryphon did was walk over to the door and try to open it. When he found he couldn't he attempted to kick it down. A futile effort thought Dr. Balia, but she was shocked to see the door was actually dented. As the man turned to glare at her she found herself more intimidated than she could ever remember being before.

Angel felt strong, you wouldn't think so after all that time starving under the sea but right now he felt stronger and better fed than he could remember being in a long time. The room around looked like it belonged in science fiction, he never ceased to be amazed with how much technology had progressed since he was alive. The woman in there with him had prevented him from leaving and now she would have to answer his questions. "Who are you and where are we " he snarled, looking as scary as he could with his human face.

"My name is Dr. Celia Balia; we're at a research institute in LA."

"What were you doing to me?" He really did not want to be experimented on.

"Nothing, I just gave you a blood transfusion to try and revive you."

"Human blood?"

"Of course what else would we use?"

A full complement of human blood, no wonder he felt so good.

"Who told you to use blood to revive me?" he asked.

"No one, but nothing else was working" she replied

So they didn't know what he was, that was good. But they knew there was something off about him otherwise he would be at a regular hospital. If he didn't want to be the one to alert humans to the presence of vampires he had to get out of there now.


End file.
